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Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Carlos Ruiz Zafón's THE SHADOW OF THE WIND

A MEMPHIS READS contributor thought you might be interested in this review of THE SHADOW OF THE WIND by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. The review, originally published at blogcritics.org, was written by New Hampshire librarian Nancy Fontaine:

Daniel Sempere was ten years old in 1945 when his father, a bookseller, took him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in their home city of Barcelona, Spain. A place known only to a select few, the tradition was that on his first visit, the visitor would find a book that would be "his." He would, from then on, have to ensure the book never disappeared, for that was the mission of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books....

Daniel devours The Shadow of the Wind in one night, he's so taken by the story. But we see that from the very start this book will mean more to him than words on a page when he almost immediately finds a scene from the book repeated in his own life. He steps out on the balcony in the small hours of the night and sees a man, gazing in his direction, with one hand in his jacket. In The Shadow of the Wind, it is the devil who strikes this very pose when the protagonist goes out on his balcony at night.